


The way out is through

by illwynd



Series: 30 Day OTP Porn Challenge [7]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bondage, Claustrophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mythology References, Non-Sexual Bondage, Pre-Canon, Sibling Incest, Sibling issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25587097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: As a young adult, Loki develops a bad case of claustrophobia. He knows he needs to deal with it, and he comes up with a method that he believes will help him get over it. But his plan involves his older brother’s help.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Series: 30 Day OTP Porn Challenge [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/65765
Comments: 37
Kudos: 117
Collections: Best Thorkis





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this, oh, at least five years ago to fill the bondage prompt for the 30 day OTP porn challenge. I wrote and rewrote it several times and then just shoved it in a folder and forgot about it. The other day I dug it up again, and with help from Schaudwen and Thebookhunter, I figured out what it needed. So here it is, a little early for Lokabrenna, but what the hell. 
> 
> Title stolen from the NIN song of the same name.

Loki hated confinement. Thor knew that; he remembered it from long ago. 

During the brief time in their youth when they were close in size—when Thor’s body had just begun to fill out after a lanky adolescence—they had sometimes wrestled, before the disparity grew to make the contest pointless. Thor remembered pinning his brother and finding himself laughing in shock and pleasure as Loki struggled, face twisting beneath him. 

“Thooor!” Loki had yelled, trying and failing to shove Thor off.

But after Loki did at last manage to slither free, and as Thor nursed the black eye Loki gave him, Thor still thought it had been anger he heard in his brother’s voice, outrage on his face. 

It wasn’t until an incident quite a few years later that he began to rethink that assumption.

At that time, Loki had been learning shapeshifting, and he flew off as a falcon one day and did not return for a month. When he did appear again, he swept past Thor with haunted eyes wide and face pale, giving no explanation. For weeks he would not bide in any room with the door latched or without a window open.

“I was locked in a cage the whole time,” Loki growled when at last he deigned to give any answer at all. “One so small I could barely sit up straight, much less stretch or move about. Had I tried to shift into my true form, I’d have been crushed, crushed straight through the bars.” Loki fell briefly silent. Then he shuddered. “And that spell was never meant to last that long.”

Thor did not know what to say in the face of his brother’s harrowing tale or his obvious distress. He noticed, however, that Loki soon after left off the study of shapeshifting, preferring instead to learn new incantations for the unlatching of locks and the opening of sealed doors, along with the more physical skills of wriggling free of any bonds that he could not enchant loose. He spent his evenings at it, sometimes wore a loop of rope around one wrist until he had mastered untangling all manner of knots behind his back in idle moments, or using whatever was ready to hand to open locks he conjured. He did these things when he thought no one was paying him any attention, and there was a shadow in his expression that had never been there before. And when by circumstance the two of them were once forced to wait in a small, closed room on a brief diplomatic journey to Vanaheim, Thor watched his brother’s face go white, his breath turn shaky, his eyes glazing and flitting as he held himself still and tried to evince no sign of distress. 

Thor understood then that Loki loathed confinement. Feared it, deeply, in a way Thor could only distantly understand.

* * *

“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” Thor said when Loki appeared at his door one evening, a determined look on his face and a strange proposition apparently in his mind. 

“A favor,” Loki answered. 

He didn’t look nervous now—quite the opposite, in fact, confident and steady—but he did have a few loops of the strong, soft line called gleipnir in his hand, and he toyed with them absently as he spoke. 

“I need for you to bind me.” 

Thor frowned.

“For what do you need my aid? You have never needed anyone to tie your knots for you before.”

Loki rolled his eyes with a little huff of breath. “That, dear brother, is the _point._ I can free myself from bonds I tied. I _know_ that. So what I want is for you to tie me so that I _cannot_ free myself. I can’t do that without help. And you’re the only one I trust.”

That admission was of course enough to get Thor to agree, though he still did not understand.

He came to Loki’s chambers that night at the agreed-upon time, and he brought all the things that Loki had asked of him. 

Loki, apparently, had been equally hard at work in preparing. He had cleared a broad space in the center of his chambers, and he stood at the edge of the thick rug—a beautiful, lush thing brought from Vanaheim—as if he had been pacing upon it while he waited. 

He was barefoot and bare-chested, with thin, soft trousers the only garment he wore, and even though the window was open, letting in a cool breeze from the dark, distant sky, already there was a glow of sweat upon his skin. 

He looked like he was awaiting a terrible trial, and somehow the sight of him gave Thor his first misgivings. 

“Do you remember my instructions? I am putting all my faith in you, Thor.”

Thor nodded and said he did. And he watched as Loki swallowed, trepidation rising in his eyes but being quashed in the same moment as he moved to kneel in the center of that cleared space. 

“Then begin,” Loki said, and his voice was steady. 

So Thor began. 

The position Loki had put himself in was kneeling up upon his knees with his arms folded behind him, each hand clasping the opposite forearm. It seemed a position designed to remain comfortable and dignified, even if he was to be bound, and the thought of that made it a little easier for Thor to do what Loki had asked. 

Thor began with Loki’s wrists, wrapping the soft line of gleipnir around them, wrist to forearm, winding around and between so as to make it secure without cutting painfully into the flesh and then knotting it tightly when he was done, letting the rest of the line dangle down Loki’s back, to fall into the slight gap between his calves on the floor. 

All that work, though, was done in silence, with Thor focused on Loki’s motionless arms and Loki making not a sound, so he couldn’t help but lean enough to see Loki’s face, put a hand to his shoulder.

“Are you well?” Thor asked. 

What he received in reply was a jerky nod. “Keep going.”

So Thor did, moving down to Loki’s ankles, repeating much the same process to bind them together while keeping the line between arms and legs taut enough that Loki would not be able to stand if he tried, as Loki had instructed him to do. 

There was a moment, as he worked, that Thor felt a strange quiver of tension go through him at the sight of the bottoms of Loki’s bare feet. His toes twitched now and then, and the soles were so pale and somehow vulnerable that Thor had an urge to touch them. It was made no better by the feel of the soft skin over the bones of Loki’s ankles under his fingers. But Thor shook the feeling away and instead focused on making sure the bindings were not too tight, still able to admit a finger beneath them so that Loki’s circulation would not be cut off. 

By then a strained quality had come into Loki’s voice when he spoke. “Is it done? Mjolnir?”

“Not yet,” Thor said. 

And he took the loose ends of the line of gleipnir with which Loki was bound and placed the hammer firmly on top of them on Loki’s bare floor, to serve as an anchor from which Loki would not be able to move.

“Now it is done.”

Loki released a breath. 

And then the hour began. 

* * *

Thor had not expected it to be like this. 

For the first ten minutes, Loki knelt motionless, his breathing so steady and even that Thor could feel the effort it took to control it. 

In the next ten minutes, Loki’s effort failed, and he began to pant in uneven gasps. He began to sweat truly, and Thor, sitting near him, saw his eyes go wild. 

By the time the hour was half done, Thor realized that while he had always thought his brother pale, he had never known the meaning of pallor. Loki’s face went white as bleached bone. Droplets of clammy sweat beaded on his brow and poured down his sides. Each breath hissed, wheezed, nearly whined. 

Soon after, Loki began to tremble, and then to quake, and then to squirm. 

But Loki had made him promise to let him be, for the whole of an hour. Not to interfere, not to release the bonds. To stay nearby for safety’s sake, but otherwise to let him be, no matter what happened. 

At forty minutes, Loki suddenly made as if to bolt, the muscles of his shoulders working, his legs twisting together as if he might just leap up and run away, but the anchor of Mjolnir jolted him back and he nearly lost his balance, sinking down so that he would not topple over. 

When Thor looked into his face, he did not think he saw his brother anymore but a wild, panicked beast, and if it had not been for the vow Loki had wrung from him, he would have untied him in that moment. 

As it was he could not stop himself from reaching out to touch him, to offer some little comfort. He had not promised not to do that.

When he did, Loki’s self came back to his eyes, the black lashes wide-flung fans about them. 

“Let me go,” he said, strain making his voice thin. 

Thor pulled back his hand. 

Loki shook his head violently. “No. Let me go; _untie_ me, damn you! I have had enough of this.”

Thor hesitated, with his eye on the clock. It had been nearly fifty minutes now. Surely that would be long enough for whatever it was Loki had needed to learn. “Are you sure, brother?” he asked.

Loki, with his eyes ablaze, nodded. “As certain as I have ever been.” 

* * *

Ten minutes later, when the hour would have been up, Loki sat rubbing at the red marks his struggles had left on his wrists, and Thor sat nearby, feeling guilty.

As soon as the bonds had come off, Loki had seemed to collapse, sinking down to one side, propped on his hands, and Thor had been convinced that he was about to begin crying, but he had not. Quicker than Thor would have believed, color returned to his cheeks and the trembling had stopped and he steadied once more. 

“You did not do as I said,” Loki murmured in a disappointed voice. 

“What?” Thor replied. “I did—you asked me to untie you.”

“No.” Loki sighed. “I warned you I might do that. You said you would be able to do as I instructed. It’s no good if I know all I have to do is beg and I’ll be free.”

Thor, uncomprehending, frowned and said nothing. And Loki sighed again, more deeply. He pushed a hand through his hair and shrugged out his shoulders. 

“If I were captured and bound by an enemy, would they give in to my begging, do you think? And you saw how I was. I would be useless to free myself in such a state, even if the bonds were less secure than these.” Loki turned his face away and spoke, it seemed, to the corner of the room. “I need your help to get past this fear, brother. I need you to make me face it. My body must learn that it will not die just from being bound and stop reacting as if it will, and I need your help to teach it that.”

Thor promised that next time he would give Loki the help he demanded, and he would not fail. 

* * *

It was several nights more before Loki asked him to return to try again. Thor was not sure if Loki had waited to give time to work himself up to it again, but for Thor it had given him time to reconsider, or nearly so.

At the time, he had not thought it truly worried him, but every time he’d closed his eyes since then, he’d seen Loki’s twitching panic unfurling before his eyes again, and he realized that it had been for his own sake that he’d been so ready to untie Loki when he asked. Seeing his little brother sweat-drenched and white with fear had been harder on him than he had known. A physical hurt within him at having to sit back and watch and do nothing. 

“So you won’t untie me before it’s time again, will you?” Loki asked when Thor arrived, again with Mjolnir on his belt, again walking into the same cleared space in the center of Loki’s chamber. 

Thor had decided that he would not bow out. He had promised Loki his help, and it was true, what Loki had argued—such a fear could land him in worse trouble. But if Loki would have his aid, he would have to make some concessions of his own, for the sake of Thor’s sanity. 

So Thor smiled a little. “I won’t. But I will be making sure that you don’t do yourself any harm if you begin to struggle again.”

Loki scoffed and gestured around at the empty floor. “How am I to harm myself?”

Thor bulled forward, regardless. “And I will not be just letting you be. I will be making sure you are all right.” 

“Thor!”

“You will get your hour, as tightly bound as you like. On my terms.”

Loki had looked into his eyes then and seemed to see his resolve, for after a moment he lifted his hands in a gesture of defeat. “Fine. Let’s try it your way.”

His expression, as he stripped off his tunic and knelt as before, seemed to say, _this will be interesting._

* * *

A few minutes later, the unbreakable cord was tied around Loki’s wrists and ankles and secured beneath Mjolnir’s great head and Thor had gotten up and moved around to Loki’s other side, so that he could watch his brother better. 

Loki met his gaze with one raised eyebrow, and he settled in, apparently determined to give Thor no reason, this time, to interfere. 

Somehow, though, this time was worse. It seemed no time at all before Loki began to break. Not even half of the hour passed before he started to beg.

“Thor,” he said, the muscles up and down his body twitching.

“Yes?”

“I… I think you need to untie me now.” Loki’s voice was less the frustrated tone of command as before, more a tentative, worried whisper. “I don’t think I can actually do this. This was a bad idea.”

Thor looked him up and down, uncertain. “You’ll be angry with me later if I do as you ask. You know you will.”

Loki shook his head. “I won’t. I swear it.” He swallowed, thickly, and Thor could hear the dryness of his mouth. A drop of sweat rolled down Loki’s sternum as he watched. “We’ll talk about this af—after I’m freed. We’ll come up with some other way to rid me of this.” 

Thor had never seen his brother so terrified, his fear only seeming to burn brighter for every calm, rational word he tried to speak that came out all wrong. 

When Thor did not answer, though, Loki went on, his voice rising higher. “Brother, please… I feel I can’t breathe… you have to…” Loki’s voice trailed off and his eyes squeezed shut and his face contorted as if in pain, his body curling in the air, his arms still locked behind his back making his shoulders bow out as he did so. 

And though the idea of making sure Loki was well had been Thor’s, he wasn’t truly sure how to do it. Particularly when threads of panic were falling through him also, trying to wrap around every nerve they found. He tried to count Loki’s breaths but only discovered the obvious—they were too fast, too shallow. 

Loki trusted him. He had said Thor was the only one he trusted, at least with something like this, with his dignity and his wellbeing and, as some part of Loki believed, his life. 

So Thor did the only thing he could think of, shuffling forward on his knees so that there were only inches between them, and he put his arms around his brother in a loose, unconfining hold that yet was meant to steady him, one hand stroking Loki’s hair, the other lightly rubbing at the cool, damp skin of his back. 

“You are all right, brother. You will be all right. You can do this,” he murmured. 

Loki stiffened for only a moment. Then he sank forward, his forehead dropping onto Thor’s shoulder, their bodies pressing more tightly together until Thor could feel the rapid, heavy thump of Loki’s heartbeat on his chest. 

The sensation caused a strange thrill to run through Thor, to have his brother in his arms, needing the comfort Thor offered. Loki had allowed little of this kind of closeness since they had become men; he disliked to be this vulnerable before anyone. But he trusted Thor now. 

Thor did his best to make soothing sounds as Loki continued to shudder and sweat against him. 

“Is the hour up?” Loki asked some time later, his voice ragged as if he’d used it all up in screaming, though he’d barely done more than whimper. 

Thor glanced at the timer they had set beforehand. The last grains of sand were running out as he looked. “Near enough. A few moments more,” he said, and with a tiny twinge of regret he unwrapped his arms from around his brother and sat back. “I’ll begin untying you now; by the time I’m through the hour will be ended.” 

Solemnly Loki nodded, kneeling straight once more and waiting to be freed. 

When it was done, Loki had trouble meeting Thor’s gaze, his face shadowed with something like shame. 

“You made it, brother!” Thor offered in congratulations. 

Loki’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I suppose.” 

* * *

They scheduled the next attempt for a week hence, and Thor felt he spent the entire time thinking about it, though he was not sure why. 

It was only because he cared about Loki, surely. He was interested in his brother’s progress and glad to be able to help him to wear away this fear… but at night, when Thor’s mind drifted before sleep overtook him, he could almost feel Loki shivering in his arms again, and his own instinctual protective response, the swell of his heart in his chest and the softness of Loki’s hair under his fingers. 

When the time came again, Thor arrived at Loki’s door early and found Loki already waiting. 

“We can do this your way again. If you like,” Loki said with a deliberately vague shrug, as if he didn’t much care despite his arguments the week before. 

Just the sight of Loki taking up his position on the floor, kneeling with his bare, lean-muscled back straight and his arms folded behind him, was enough to cause a strange fluttering twinge in Thor’s core, though he did not question himself as to why.

Loki held his head up proudly and he took deep breaths to stave off the first twinges of panic as Thor began to tie him again.

The fine bones of Loki’s wrists and ankles. The flicker of his speeding pulse under Thor’s fingers. Loki shifting subtly on his knees, and the tender white undersides of his curling feet. 

In the years since their adolescence, Thor had grown heavy and broad, body dense with muscle. But Loki had become something else, and Thor felt he was only truly appreciating him now.

Loki’s body was all formed of contrasts that made something clench in Thor’s chest. The darkest shadow of black hair wispy against the pale, graceful neck, the lean but muscled back. Long limbs with a different sort of strength, somehow making him think of the brief forms of water in a rushing stream. The clever green eyes that forever sparked with power of a sort foreign to Thor, though they were now squeezed shut to hold the terror at bay. 

Thor had never looked at his brother this way before, and he wasn’t sure why he was doing so now, or what it was he was feeling, or what it meant. His own pulse was fast with anticipation, and surely that made sense under the circumstances. But that wasn’t all it was.

When the last knot was tied and the loose ends pinned under the hammer once again, Thor knelt at his brother’s side.

“Is it getting any easier with time?” 

Loki’s eyes blinked open, and now they flashed. “Don’t mock,” he spat through clenched teeth. “You have no idea what it’s like. I didn’t ask for this. It doesn’t make me weak. It is simply something I have to get past.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“It’s not even _fear_. I don’t feel afraid. What I feel—it is physical. I feel as though if I don’t escape this very moment, I will die. Do you know, I think I would chew my own foot off to be free? Like a trapped wolf…”

The sound Loki made might have been an attempt at a laugh, a choked and stuttering breath. But coming from Loki, who usually laughed so easily, it sounded wrong. 

Thor said nothing more, only scooting closer to capture Loki in that same loose embrace, the sound of Loki’s harsh, quick breaths filling his ears. He petted Loki’s quaking, sweaty shoulders, traced his fingers down Loki’s arms bound in unbreakable line behind his back.

And Thor had tied him like this, pinned him with a weight he could not budge; Loki was completely helpless in his arms and suffering through a terrible trial that not even his brother’s presence could assuage. 

“Shh, brother,” Thor soothed when Loki began to panic again, muscles tensing, body squirming. “Shh.” 

Loki was bound and fighting, silent and proud. Beautiful, sweating and shivering, lank black hair against his brow. And Thor felt so many things for him in that moment, such tenderness and overflowing adoration, and something that made his cheeks grow warm; at the same time it was something visceral, a deep need welling up in him. It was a need that could not stay still, could not stay silent. It needed to spill out some way, into some practical action.

Thor could not help pressing his lips to Loki’s cheek, kissing him repeatedly, until Loki pulled back from him, blinking. 

The panic seemed receded; at the forefront was shock, doubt, taking over the green of Loki’s eyes. 

“What…” Loki stuttered out. “Why…?”

Thor smiled at him, trying to find words for the craving he felt. “I have never seen such bravery, brother,” he said at last.

Loki stared back at him, sweat-sheened, his chest still heaving with each breath. He shook his head. “It’s not… Thor, I don’t want to feel this. I hate to be so…”

“I know,” Thor answered. “And you’re not.”

Loki’s eyes dropped from his and his whole body shuddered again, and Thor resumed kissing him, because Loki allowed it. Dry, tender, brotherly kisses, until Loki softened in his arms. 

Thor glanced over his shoulder at the timer and found that only a few minutes remained. 

Shortly thereafter, Loki sat on the floor, rubbing at his wrists in silence, glancing at Thor every few moments but saying nothing. 

Saying nothing at first.

“Thor, what was that?”

Thor frowned, feeling odd about it only then. “I was trying to comfort you,” he said. 

Loki looked away. “You chose odd means of comfort.” 

“Well, did it not help?”

Loki took in a breath and released it all in a gust. Shrugged his shoulders slightly. Ignored Thor as he went on to roll them, working out the tension. 

“After that, though, I think I require a drink. Care to join me?”

Thor certainly was not about to refuse. 

* * *

“It is getting a little better, I think,” Loki admitted once he had the stem of a wineglass in his hand, having brought out a bottle from his own little store of favorites and poured for them both. “It’s hard to really gauge, but I think it is helping.”

Loki, like this, was pulled back from Thor again. Self-contained and with a wall brought up between them, and Thor had only just begun to realize that the lack of it when they carried out Loki’s trials was part of why he felt the way he did about those times. 

That wall was a recent thing. When they were young it had not been there, had it? Thor was sure it had not. He remembered feeling tenderly toward his little brother so often when they were small, knowing that Loki needed him. But he hadn’t felt that in a while, because Loki went to great lengths to never appear to need anything at all. 

Thor swirled the dark liquid and took a careful sip. “So you will want to continue?”

That was what it had been like. Many times when they were both quite young, they could not be kept from each other’s beds in the nursery and spent nights playing together under the blankets, and Thor remembered tickling Loki relentlessly until he had his little brother collapsed in his arms, exhausted from giggling. He remembered holding tight when his little brother woke from a nightmare and scurried across the peril of the dark room to burrow at his side. It had made Thor feel special. It had made Thor feel good. And he had been missing it ever since such intimacy between them had ceased. 

But such a thing would take on a different meaning now that they were grown, wouldn’t it? 

Thor felt his lips tingling from all the kisses he had bestowed upon his brother’s cheek not even an hour before. 

Loki gazed at him, so that Thor felt he was being studied. “Yes,” he said. “I think we should. It’s helping, but I’m obviously not cured yet. So… as long as you’re willing to help, I suppose.” 

“I will be willing as long as you need me,” Thor insisted. 

Loki gave him a little smile and took another drink. 

But thinking about the past soon got Thor wondering, and Loki’s wine was good enough to loosen his tongue after the second glass, so that he found himself leaning propped on his elbow, head tilted.

“So is it just because of when you were caged as a falcon?” Thor asked. “Or did you already have this fear before that? You did not like to be confined, even long ago…” 

But it had not always been something Loki complained of, so when had that begun? And had it been anywhere near the time when Loki began to pull away from him, disallowing their former closeness? 

With the clarity of inebriation, the answers seemed terribly important. 

“That made it all worse, certainly,” Loki answered, frowning a little. “I’m not sure how much I really feared it before. But that cage. That was what turned dislike into… this.” A vague gesture at himself, hand wavering in the air. “I was in that cage for a month, nearly. My very life depended on my being able to conceal my distress, and knowing what would happen if I failed to control myself only made that harder to do. Made the fear worse. It was exhausting.” 

“But you’re very skilled at that sort of thing anyway. I would have thought it would be simple for you,” Thor said.

Loki gave a weak laugh. “You would think that.”

Thor frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means ‘Yes, brother, I’m practiced at feigning my way through unpleasant conversations. But that is rather different.’” 

For a few minutes, they sat in silence, Loki draining the dregs of the bottle into their glasses, meticulously switching from his own glass to Thor’s to make certain that the levels were equal, and Thor watched him do so, curiously. Old habits of perfect sharing from when they were both young and both inclined to believe themselves shortchanged.

“I hope you don’t ever feel a need to feign anything with me,” Thor said when Loki had finished. 

Loki’s brows drew together. “Of course not.” 

But Thor knew the feeling of that wall between them, and his tongue was loosened enough that he wanted to push upon it, to see if he could make it fall. 

“Did you mind my kissing your cheek? You didn’t tell me whether it helped, but you used to like such things.”

Loki turned to him and stared, and Thor wasn’t sure whether it was from the wine or from embarrassment but a blush seemed to creep onto his skin as well. “When we were still in the nursery! You hadn’t done that in centuries.”

“Are you saying you’re too old for it now?” Thor answered, playful.

“Yes, and so are you.” 

It was because Thor was older and more responsible now that he took care to move their glasses and bottle out of flailing distance before he pounced, fingers splayed for tickling.

“Thor, don’t you dare!” Loki cried, but it was already too late, Thor’s hands already getting at his brother’s ribs, and within moments he had Loki squirming and giggling.

And somehow, in his mild inebriation, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to heed Loki’s demands that he cease by instead wrapping his arms around his brother and pulling him close, nuzzling against his shoulder. 

Loki gave him a half-hearted shove. “You’re lucky I owe you for all the aid you’ve given me or you’d be feeling my revenge for that in your kidneys.” 

“You don’t really hate it so much. Do you?” Thor turned his face up, meeting Loki’s gaze. 

“I don’t think anyone really _likes_ being tickled,” Loki answered, calm and giving no sign of the pleasure Thor himself felt at being so close again. 

“You used to.”

Loki made a small noise, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“Or at least I thought you did. I would not have done it if I’d thought you truly disliked it. You know that, don’t you?”

Loki’s answer that time was even less certain. He gave a shrug.

Thor was no longer at all sure that they were still speaking of tickling. He wasn’t sure exactly what they were talking about. But it felt significant. He felt it deep in his belly and in the back of his throat and behind his eyes. His head was a little light from the wine, and his conviction was strong as iron, even without understanding exactly what it _meant_. 

“I only ever did it because I liked making you laugh.”

Loki pulled away then, gently but firmly extricating himself. “You liked having me at a disadvantage, more like it.” 

Thor shook his head. “Do you truly believe that?”

Loki sighed. “No, of course not.”

Thor frowned. 

“Let us speak of something else,” Loki added, still trying to subtly remove himself from Thor’s embrace and doing rather poorly at it. 

“I have missed being close to you. I don’t understand why we’re not anymore.”

Loki gazed at him. And then it seemed that Thor blinked, and between closing his eyes and opening them he was transported to his own bed (the room spinning slightly around him), where he swiftly fell asleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all for reading! I hope you enjoy the end bit :DDD

_Norns, what had that been?_

It was easy enough for Loki to maneuver his inebriated brother back to his own room and his own bed and to leave him there, snoring quietly. 

It was harder to sort out in his own mind what had happened that evening, starting with the moment Thor had begun kissing his cheek while he was bound. And thinking about that now, with the door to his chambers closed behind him again, made his face heat. 

It was embarrassment, surely. It was not enough that he suffered from such a humiliating affliction as a ridiculous fear of confinement. It was not enough that he had needed to beg his brother’s aid to try to banish that vivid panic from his body. Now he even needed to be soothed like a crying child during it? Surely the wave of feeling that had rushed through him had just been embarrassment. White-hot shame. 

But if that was so, why had he not wanted to shove Thor away afterward? In any ordinary circumstance, Loki would either have retaliated at the first opportunity, or fled. 

Instead, he had almost… welcomed it. 

He had invited Thor to stay and drink with him. 

He had wanted Thor to be near him afterward, while he recovered from the strain of it all, though after their previous attempts he had only ever wanted to be alone in that time until he felt he had fully regained his composure. 

But then Thor had proceeded to harass him like when they were small… and even then, Loki had not entirely minded it. He had… perhaps… even enjoyed it, just a little bit. 

Well, not the tickling. But Thor’s awkward, drunken grappling with him afterward, and the weight of Thor resting against him. 

Why had that felt as good as it did, being so close to him? Why had something warm spread through Loki’s chest to hear Thor claiming never to have meant to discomfit him when they were younger?

It was not even that Loki ever believed Thor had _intended_ cruelty back then. Of course he hadn’t. Thor was not the sort for that. It was simply that he would not _notice_ , nor would he listen to aught but the most abject of pleas—and Loki could not bear to cry for mercy, not once he realized that everyone already thought him weak, thought him lesser than his glorious elder brother. So he had learned to endure, and he had not blamed Thor for any of it. 

But having Thor there tonight… embracing him and giving plaintive excuses for long-ago injuries, and sounding like he _had_ noticed, at last…

It had warmed something within Loki, almost painfully, so that it had come as a rush of relief when the drink had gone to Thor’s head and brought their evening to a swift close.

And now here he was, alone, still trying to make sense of it all to himself, and finding himself only growing more tangled. 

After a while of such thoughts, Loki downed the last inch of wine in his own glass and got up, rubbing at his eyes and stretching his limbs. Changed into a nightshirt and drew back the bedspread and lay down, dousing the lights from afar with a casual wave of his hand and then lying there in the dark, feeling his own breaths slowing down to match the cadence of cool breezes out beyond his windows. 

Better to think about his own more pressing problem yet unsolved. He was not in fact sure that his fear was growing appreciably less with these attempts. He was not really sure that it was doing any good. But he was not ready to give up on this method.

In fact, as he closed his eyes, he found he was almost anxious for their next attempt. Almost anxious to try it again. 

* * *

The next day would be too soon, of course, and that would have been so even if he had managed to cross paths with Thor sometime before nightfall—and that was only a brief meeting, Thor seeming preoccupied as they passed one another in the hallway. 

They had something of a pattern by now anyway, didn’t they? Once a week, on a particular evening, at a particular hour. That would surely be soon enough. 

Loki intended to mention as much to Thor, just to be sure… but he barely saw him at all until midweek. When he finally did have more than a moment to speak to him, it was at supper. Which was hardly the place for a private conversation, but it would have to do.

Thor blinked and glanced away, awkward, after Loki asked the question.

Loki felt himself frowning. “You are still willing to help, aren’t you?” he asked. “You said you would.”

Thor blushed a little as he nodded, fussing briefly with a crust of bread on his plate before he spoke. “Certainly, I am still willing to help. I just wasn’t sure you would want to continue.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Thor shrugged. “Simply… if it isn’t helping? It seems a great deal of misery for you to endure if it’s not making things any better. I thought perhaps you might want to seek another method, something that will cause you less suffering.”

A dozen emotions rose up in Loki, and a dozen answers. He quashed all of them down, clenching his jaw and letting out a silent breath through his nose. 

“I think it _will_ work,” he said instead with perfect calm. “I don’t think this is the sort of problem that can be solved quickly no matter the method, and I’d rather not have _endured so much misery_ , as you put it, and then just throw away any progress I _had_ made because it was not pretty to watch. Please. We’ve already talked about this. I need to get past this, and I need your help.”

At last, Thor fully met his gaze, and he nodded his acquiescence, and then swiftly looked away again.

“Are you all right, Thor?” Loki asked, because clearly he was not.

Thor gave a brief laugh “Of course.”

Loki said nothing. 

And usually that would be enough to get Thor to say more, to admit whatever was troubling him, but tonight it was swiftly followed by Thor excusing himself from the table, claiming some other obligation to attend to that evening. 

It was clear enough that what was troubling Thor—what had caused him to avoid Loki these last few days, and to behave oddly toward him when they did meet, and now to flee from even speaking to him—was to do with Loki’s trials. Perhaps, specifically, with what had happened last time. With his own odd behavior during it—or with their conversation after? 

Or had he merely grown too uncomfortable with the entire process and could cover it no more? Did he mean to discourage Loki rather than admit that he did not wish to go on with what he had already promised? 

It made Loki only more determined. Part of him digging in his heels, wanting to continue even more if Thor would try to stop him. Needing to prove himself, because it _was_ a miserable thing to endure, and he would not run from it. 

Part of him just curious, wanting to find out what was going on. What Thor would do next. 

All of him drawn onward by a strange, tense warmth in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought about it. Whenever he thought about Thor's kisses upon his cheek, amid the unpleasant tedium of that hour.

The rest of the week passed in a blur of anticipation.

* * *

Finally the appointed hour came again, and Thor arrived precisely on time, knocking lightly and then waiting there such that he seemed to stand in tense readiness when Loki pulled the door open.

They did not talk much as Loki got ready, and that suited Loki well enough: it was always difficult to tamp down his nervousness at this point, a nervousness that made him too restless to even think clearly, and this time he had not been able to distract himself practically since he woke in the morning. 

As the hour drew near he had bathed, which was intended to help to calm and steady him. He'd taken his time combing his hair after, tying it back loosely, a ritual of repetitive motions and soothing sensations, yet he had still been almost trembling when he was done. Staring at his own pale face in the mirror.

Yet the feeling of that anticipation, as he sat waiting, was a little different than it had been. It was still a ceaseless nervousness, the sort that made sweat spring up on his skin and made his heart race and his thoughts trip over themselves. But it was not quite as unpleasant as he was used to. At least he thought it felt different this time. It was hard to be sure.

He’d felt he could not wait for Thor to arrive. Surely that made sense; the sooner they began, the sooner it would be over. 

He had practically leapt up at the knock on the door, sweat on his sides but his mouth pulling almost into a nervous grin as he ushered his brother inside.

He rushed likewise to strip off his tunic and kneel down in the cleared center of his floor in the accustomed position for Thor to begin. 

* * *

It felt a little different when Thor began to bind him, as well. 

All the other times, Loki had been far more aware of the loudness of the ringing in his ears. He’d been forcing down a thousand wretched sensations, trying to convince himself he did _not_ feel as if he might vomit, as if he might faint, as if he could not get enough air to his lungs, while it seemed every cell in his body had a different, distinct idea of what offenses they were enduring. All the other times, he’d barely been aware of being bound, far more concerned with the sensation of numbness in his lips, the burning of his brow, the clenching of his innards.

Now he was aware of fear, of distress. But more vividly, he was aware of the warmth of Thor’s hands upon him. The care with which Thor wrapped the line around Loki’s forearms. The tentative feeling of his touch. 

When Thor finished there and moved down to bind his ankles, at the first light brush of skin, Loki drew in a sharp breath, and Thor paused.

“Are you well?” Thor asked. 

_Sensitive_ , that was what he was. More than last week, or before. And he wasn’t sure why. “Yes,” he managed. “Fine.”

But Thor continued even more gently. And it was not just that he was careful with the cord as he wrapped it around. He paused here and there to rub at Loki’s ankles with strong fingers, as if trying to soothe away the tension in them. 

And that almost felt… good?

At the end, he pressed his palms against the soles of Loki’s feet for a moment, an oddly tender gesture, rubbing at his arches with the heels of his hands, and Loki had to hold back a groan. 

Then Thor moved away and Loki heard the soft thump of Mjolnir being set down.

“Shall I set the timer now?” Thor asked. 

Loki nodded, blinking his eyes clear and steeling himself. “Yes, I’m ready.”

* * *

It was still bad. 

It was still long, drawn-out seconds strung together into eternal minutes, all filled with the tedium of discomfort and the feeling of cold sweat dripping down his sides and his mind throwing him back into the visceral terror that at any moment he might die. 

And it was bad, especially, because despite the care with which Thor had tied him, he had then moved away to watch over Loki from a distance, just as he had done the first time, watching while Loki squirmed. 

Why had Thor not come near to soothe him? Why did he not do any of the things he had done before when Loki was in distress? 

Loki knelt there squirming for several more minutes. He glanced over at Thor, who was watching him with a look of quiet worry, and wondered why he could not tell that Loki needed him. Or could he? Did he know and simply not want to? Had he decided, after last time, not to attempt such comfort anymore? Had he decided, after the fact, that it was too intimate a sort of touch, or a weakness not worth indulging, or...

Loki squirmed and suffered until it occurred to him that perhaps he could just—

“Thor?” he asked, voice shaky. 

Thor was at his side in an instant. “Yes?”

“I—I need your help.”

Thor’s fingers were gentle, pushing an escaped lock of sweaty hair back from his brow, and that touch alone sent shivers through him. Made everything snap into sharper focus. “What do you need for me to do?” Thor asked.

Loki’s throat felt frozen, his tongue felt thick and dry and unwieldy. But eventually he forced words out. “Could you… come close and hold me, like before?”

The difference was almost immediate when he did. 

A big, warm hand stroking over his shoulders, down his back, then tracing back up his spine—Loki forgot to attend to each endless miserable second. Time passed instead in the travel of Thor’s hand over each of his vertebrae. 

Enough of his mind even returned to his own control for him to wonder… it had not made such a difference before. The previous attempts, Thor’s touch had comforted him, but merely enough to make the suffering bearable. And now he almost… now his whole body was abuzz with something that was _not_ misery, was _not_ the agony of frozen terror. 

It was still a sort of nervous tension, but he felt it now like a hunger. Like a great, starved need, and Thor—Thor close to him, touching him, paying attention to him, actually _noticing_ his reactions and changing the motion of his hands to match—was—was—

Loki wanted Thor to kiss him again as well. He wanted it again with a sudden, overwhelming desire. 

Thor’s lips kissing his cheek, like long ago, when all rough play subsided. Like nights spent telling each other tales under their blankets, falling asleep in a tangle of limbs, Thor’s nose in his hair, and Loki unable to imagine anywhere safer. Thor kissing him like that. Loki wanted it like air, and his mind was racing and flickering over it, but his thoughts had gained new deftness; no longer did they crash over one another like waves. Instead, everything seemed clear. 

_Like that_. But also not like that at all.

He thought of how Thor had behaved around him that week, and he had a faint notion, barely conceived before it settled deep into his belly and spread.

“Kiss me again, too?” he whispered, and his voice was still shaky and thin. But for different reason. 

Loki’s heart hammered in terror and anticipation as Thor obeyed, closing those last few inches of distance to press his lips to Loki’s cheek, brotherly and sweet. In this new clarity, he could breathe and catch Thor’s scent, next to the sharper tinge of his own sweat. He could study the way the lamplight seemed to glow where it caught the gold of Thor’s hair. He could feel the brush of Thor’s breath upon his face, could listen to his occasional soothing murmurs.

He could turn his face so that the next kiss landed upon his lips instead, and part them, leaning his body into it as all the anxious tension wound up within him, deliciously tight.

And he could hear, in the quiet, Thor’s unconscious noise of pleasure that came in answer.

Thor’s eyes, which had drifted closed, flew open at his own sound, and he jolted back. 

Loki, bound, could not reach for him. Could do nothing to stop him from—

“Please, Thor, wait. Don’t stop. It’s all right, it—”

Thor was staring at him, blue eyes blinking, mouth open in shock. 

“It helps… and—and I want to,” Loki pleaded.

Was this not why Thor had been so awkward in his presence these last few days?

The silence, as it drew out—that was a worse fear than Loki had ever felt in this confinement. Yet the hum of Thor’s mouth on his lingered as a sensation inside him. It spread, as a warmth in his belly, and it dropped lower.

Here he was, bound by his brother’s hand, so that he could not move, could not escape if he wanted. His brother, whose big hands had felt so good upon his ankles, upon his back. The only person he trusted deeply enough to see him this vulnerable. His brother, who he had just kissed. 

Loki’s new consciousness of his body soon alerted him to another sensation. One that his thin, comfortable trousers would not conceal.

He also saw Thor notice it, only moments afterward. 

“Please, brother. Touch me again. Distract me. Please.” The words—bold, fearless, despite the quaver in his voice—filled his mouth, and he savored them.

Loki breathed in the tension as Thor once more approached, slow as if he were in a trance. 

* * *

Thor felt like he was in a trance as he shuffled closer, closing the distance between them until he was aware of the closeness of Loki’s body in every inch of his own skin. 

All this week he had been avoiding the thought of it. He had awoken, after their night drinking together, knowing what it was he felt, but unwilling to think the words.

He had remembered how it felt to hold Loki through his fear, how it felt to stroke his hair, his damp shoulders, how it felt to press his lips against Loki’s cheek. It was adoration for his brother, a simple, chaste fondness. Pride at his bravery. 

It was not just that. 

It was the tenderness that sprung up in him at the sight of the bare soles of Loki’s feet. The way he could be captured by the contrast of a curl of black hair on pale skin. The thudding of his heart in anticipation of having the excuse to hold him close again, sweating and trembling and needing the comfort Thor could give.

He had refused to think it because… surely it was not _right_. It would be base of him to take any pleasure from what was, for Loki, a miserable trial. Setting aside that he should not feel that way in the first place—surely he should not feel such things for his brother, and the only possible path was for him to keep those feelings to himself. To never burden Loki with the knowledge of them. 

But now… Loki had kissed _him_ , and Thor had felt something very like lightning running through that kiss. 

And now Loki asked for Thor to… _touch_ him.

Was Loki’s heart racing as Thor’s was?

Thor moved like one under a spell as he placed his left hand upon Loki’s shoulder, steadying. And leaned close, until they were gazing into each other’s eyes from inches apart. Breathing each other’s warm exhalations. Loki’s chin tipped up slightly. Thor felt pulled even closer, until their mouths touched. 

Loki’s lips parted, just as before. But this time Thor felt the wetness within and it took him a moment to realize it was because his own tongue had pressed forward to seek it. He felt the hum of a moan, and he did not know whose it was. 

His right hand, meanwhile, had moved without his volition as well, coming to rest on the bare skin of Loki’s waist, where Thor could feel the motion of his breathing, his squirming. 

Fingertips trailing forward along his abdomen, and they felt it tense and clench in sudden gasps. The dip of his navel, the fuzz of hair beneath. 

The tension of the waistband. 

Thor’s conscious mind was no part of this. All of him was attuned to Loki, to his every slightest sound and motion. A hum against Loki’s lips to ask confirmation, permission. 

The drawn-out whine that answered, and hips pressing forward. 

Thor’s mind whited out entirely when his fingers crept beneath soft fabric and encountered softer skin. Touched it, wrapped around it, feeling its weight and heat. Felt how that soft skin moved across the iron hardness beneath.

Loki kissed him desperately. His whole body was canted forward, pressing into Thor’s embrace, into his touch, to the limit of what his bonds would allow, so that Thor could only wonder how he would be without them. What it would be like if Loki were in his arms unrestrained. Skin bare, just like this. Mouth seeking, just like this. If he were not held back but could do as he pleased.

It seemed the keenest sort of contradiction. All his brother’s quiet intensity, focused upon one desire, and relying now upon Thor to fulfill it. Trusting in him and offered up to him and still trembling and sweating and squirming against his bonds just like the other times but now it meant something very different. The brimming energy Thor could feel within Loki’s tensed form. The noises he made—not loud, barely more than the quietest of breaths, but they were all Thor could hear. 

Thor began by stroking his length, and felt Loki tremble. He let his fingers play backward briefly along the tight, tender curve of Loki’s stones, and heard him gasp and whimper. He traced the thick vein and rubbed his thumb beneath the head, finding the sensitive spot that he knew from his own body, and Loki’s response then was to writhe in his embrace and kiss him deeper, even sucking Thor’s tongue into his mouth.

Thor wrapped his other arm around Loki’s back, fingers splayed against him, pressing them tightly together, pinning Loki between Thor’s body and the bonds he had tied upon him, leaving only room for the motion of his hand below.

The strangest part was how Thor could feel it all, was attuned to him as if they were one being. He could feel Loki’s pleasure rising, could feel his heart thudding beneath his ribs, could feel the muscles in his thighs tensing as he got close. Thor felt almost that he would reach his peak along with his brother, without a single touch upon him.

And he was not sure how it could happen that he felt the sharp surge of pleasure as Loki shuddered against him, gasping and panting into their kiss, while semen gushed warm over Thor’s fingers. 

Thor stayed there, close against him, while Loki subsided, while his breathing slowed and he recovered himself, still leaning against Thor’s chest. And slowly Thor’s own mind returned. 

He ought to feel as if they had just done something terribly wrong, shouldn’t he? He knew that he should. But he didn’t. 

When he pulled back enough to look into his brother’s eyes, he saw no such shame there either. Instead, Loki looked as if a great weight had lifted from him. He looked weary, yes, wrung out. And a little nervous, as if it had belatedly occurred to him that what had just happened between them might prove disastrous. 

Thor lifted his clean hand and brushed that same damp, escaped lock of hair back from Loki’s brow. 

“Are you all right, brother?” he asked. 

Loki nodded, quiet, as if in thought. 

Thor leaned to look past his shoulder. The timer had run out, though he could not guess how long ago it had happened.

“The hour is over. I’ll untie you now.”

A few minutes later they sat together in that same spot, in the center of Loki’s floor. 

Thor had insisted, after getting them both cleaned up, on taking Loki’s wrists in his hands and massaging them. Doing the same with his ankles after. Then his shoulders. Anyplace that might have been uncomfortably tensed or constricted. 

“You don’t need to do that,” Loki protested quietly. “I’m fine.”

Thor smiled. “But I want to. I have ignored you too much, and I would make up for it.”

This answer only made Loki’s brow twist. “Is that why you… indulged me?”

“No,” Thor answered. 

Neither one of them had said anything about it yet. Not even while Thor had cleaned the last traces of his brother’s spill from between his fingers. 

“Why, then?”

Thor felt as if he walked in strange territory. 

He had thought the other day how much he longed for the times before Loki was so guarded. He had longed to bring that wall down. 

This Loki who sat next to him was less guarded. Thor was able to peer over the wall. But instead of taking them back to younger, more carefree days, what he saw worried him. That Loki thought such care for him was unnecessary. That he feared Thor had only humored him. Each time Thor looked at him, he thought he saw in the clever flash of Loki’s eyes a multitude of walls. A multitude of fears, simply waiting. 

“I was not _indulging_ you. We both wanted to do that. Didn’t we? I wanted to. And I wanted to do as you asked, to distract you from your discomfort with more pleasant things. I wanted to show you that you can have faith in me.”

As Thor watched, the color in Loki’s cheeks deepened. “I wanted it as well. Obviously.”

Thor continued to watch his brother’s face, curious at the embarrassment in his eyes as they evaded Thor’s gaze. 

“And did it help?”

Loki let out a sharp breath. “Clearly it did.”

“No, I mean… has it made your fear any less?”

At that, Loki lifted his chin, jaw jutting. “We’ll just have to find out next time, won’t we?”

Thor grinned. “We will.”

* * *

It did eventually work. With time, with great and laborious effort on both their parts, Loki’s fear was cured. There was, however, one unforeseen side effect. 

Some years later, they were in fact captured while on an adventure in Svartalfheim, and the two princes were seized, put in shackles, and thrown in a barred cell together. 

Thor had a moment of worry when he saw a shadow flash across Loki’s face. A look of concentration. He worried that some remnant of Loki’s old horror of confinement remained and that his old predictions of dire outcomes would come true.

“Are you well, brother?” he whispered when their captors had receded into the darkness on the far side of the cavern. 

Loki’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Are you…” Thor tried to find a way to finish this sentence that wouldn’t insult Loki or give any listening ears ideas. Fortunately, he didn’t have to, for understanding dawned across Loki’s face. Then, after glancing to be sure that none of the dark elves were near, he smirked. 

“I was just hoping no one else noticed this.” He inclined his head slightly toward his own lap at the evidence that he had been trained out of his fear of being bound and into a wholly different reaction to the sensation.

“Oh,” Thor said, his cheeks suddenly going warm despite the cool of the underground space. 

Loki went on, wriggling just a little against his chained hands. “Also planning. Give me but a few moments.”

And after Loki had freed them, secretly unlatched the locks of the cell door, drawn the guards near, and waited for Thor to leave their bodies strewn limp across the shadowy floor, Loki was still hard, still burning with tension and need. 

Thor, of course, obliged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say hi to me [on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/illwynd), if you so desire!


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